Somewhere Tarla Dalal’s pinwheel sandwiches and Nigella Lawson’s chocolate cake, in my mother’s scrapbook-style cookbook is a magazine cut-out of a very special dip—a dill, pine nut and yoghurt mix that we often eat with homemade corn chips. It was first made over a decade ago, but I still remember the clean flavours that packed a powerful punch—and what was to be my first brush with a Yotam Ottolenghi recipe.

If you’ve ever looked up his recipes for a potluck, you’d know his food celebrates the Mediterranean and Middle East flavours but also offers a cosmopolitan taste that reflects his mixed parentage. (His mother was born to German parents in Sweden, and his father, Italian.) This may be the reason he is today a food visionary beyond borders—but it’s also the simplicity of his food that makes him accessible around the globe. In a world obsessed with trends that change before you can finish saying gluten-free-vegan-charcoal-waffles, here’s a chef who has been standing by simple food ever since he began his career as an independent chef in London.

This month, the Israeli-British chef is ready with his seventh cookbook, Ottolenghi Simple (Penguin Random House). And what connects the dishes from his new cookbook to his signature aubergine in buttermilk recipe that has over 90,000 views on YouTube is the approachability. On a call to London, I ask him why he continues to reiterate the same idea in his latest book: “You’re right, my food has always been simple. But mainly because of where you’re looking at it from. Asians are used to a lot of prep, so my (earlier) recipes seem easy to you. Whereas for the European world these are simpler than what is in my other books, with fewer ingredients and quicker turnaround.”

Featuring dishes like gem lettuce meets fridge-raid dressing, most of his recipes use less than 10 ingredients. It is this simplicity that explains his popularity on social media with over a million followers across platforms.

At home in the world

For Ottolenghi, simplicity began at home. His earliest food memories are of his dad cooking potatoes in olive oil and sage, or rustling up a raw salad of cucumber, cauliflower and basil leaves. “When you in Palestine or Israel, you don’t just champion simple cooking—it’s who you are,” he says. This simplicity has been his trademark since he began his eponymous London bakery in 2002. Within months of opening, it achieved a cult following, with serpentine queues waiting to get their hands on his croissants and open sandwiches. “It was the juxtaposition of freshly-made food using local ingredients with a range of new Middle Eastern flavours. Vegetables were a sidekick, but my heritage showed them what you can do with ingredients like preserved lemons, orange blossom water and tahini.” While Londoners took pride in their classic pastries, Ottolenghi’s bakes were bare and bold.

Through his two-decade-long career, inclusion of other cultures has been a big part of his philosophy. “My cooking style has changed to include more flavours in my repertoire. I never used Mexican chilies, or miso, fish sauce or Chinese rice wine before, but now that’s changed.” And Ottolenghi Simple brings these cross-cultural references through dishes such as Italian gnocchi, Thai sticky rice, Iranian herb fritters and braised eggs with za’atar.

At his recently launched restaurant, Rovi, in London, diners can enjoy a Jerusalem grill and celeriac shawarma followed by a cranachan, a Scottish dessert made of whisky, fruit and cream. The menu highlights head chef Neil Campbell’s Scottish heritage alongside Ottolenghi’s Middle-Eastern roots. And this is what makes his food universal in its appeal—his ability to effortlessly bring together flavours from the East and West. “I don’t think I’m consciously blurring lines. I’m just not shy of bold flavours and to add my history and geography to whatever I cook. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.”

Food for thought

It’s not just a variety of cuisines that he plays with; he also occasionally mixes food with history, art and design. “Breaking down disciplines is a wonderful thing and each party can benefit from what’s happening in another’s field,” he says. In December 2016, he collaborated with the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York on an exhibition titled Jerusalem 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven. “This was the first time I did food in a cultural context,” says the Jerusalem-born chef who also has a cookbook named after the city. The themed dinner saw dishes inspired by Medieval Jerusalem, such as harak osbao, a lentil-based dish with fettuccini and pomegranate granita, mint and roses.

In 2017, Ottolenghi delved into the Indian cultural and culinary landscape with Modernism On The Ganges—he conceptualised a meal inspired by Indian street photographer Raghubir Singh’s exhibit at The Met Breuer. Over a menu based on Indian street eats by chef Floyd Cardoz (of The Bombay Canteen fame), Ottolenghi with cookbook writer Madhur Jaffrey spoke about the importance of these dishes. “I like doing things that shed light on food through history and culture. I can never work in isolation. How can you understand food without getting perspective on the culture?” he adds.

You’ll find trails of Indian spices and cooking techniques in his books, too—his latest features a recipe for a tomato and cucumber raita. Ottolenghi admits being impressed with Indian food for a while now; he not only understands how spice mixes work, he can even cook up a mean chicken tikka. “I’ve travelled to Delhi, parts of Rajasthan, Ladakh and Dehradun and have had the privilege to learn Punjabi cooking from locals in London,” says the chef who has experimented with curry leaves in soup and salad dressing.

The melting point

According to Ottolenghi.co.uk, 75 per cent of his followers are from outside London, so pushing boundaries, evidently, comes naturally to the 49-year-old. “The world is a big place and diversity is always good,” he says. This makes his opinion on refugee cooking—one of the biggest trends in food today—important to understand. In 2016, Ottolenghi championed the #CookForSyria campaign to raise money and create awareness for Syrian refugees in Europe. “When you bring something from outside to a new culture, it’s an unusual statement. I was greeted with open arms but today refugees are cooking out of necessity. It’s a way of surviving…. All they can do is cook (especially) if they don’t have a language,” he says, stressing on cooking as a form of self-expression for immigrants.

With his empire of six restaurants, seven cookbooks, and a weekly column with the Guardian, Ottolenghi today lives a charmed life in London with his children Max and Flynn and husband Karl Allen. His personal choices too are anything but conventional. The culinary icon has been married to Allen for 18 years but only came out as a gay father through a column in 2013. “I feel like you can have the most positive impact if you live your life openly and transparently. It’s about exposing your true self. Then people can see that and draw confidence and power from it.”

See, it’s really that ‘simple’.